


The first day of the rest of their lives

by Multifandom_damnation



Category: The Gifted (TV 2017)
Genre: Bipolar Disorder, Bullying, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Mutant Powers, Pre-Canon, Pre-Season/Series 01, Self-Discovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:15:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24231952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Multifandom_damnation/pseuds/Multifandom_damnation
Summary: John was eleven when he woke up with the sensation of the sun being too bright, his sheets being too itchy, the noise outside too loud, the smell of his mother's cooking too strong. Lorna was twelve when the bullies came to her house, chucking rocks and hurling insults, laughing when she screamed at them. Marcos was thirteen when his skin started to itch uncontrollably like it didn’t fit right as if bugs were crawling under his skin. Clarice was fourteen when it happened the first time, a panic that bloomed in her chest and fluttered in her throat like a second heartbeat.Mutant powers tend to manifest at young ages, through stressful or dangerous events, or just when it's their time to blossom. This is how it happened for the founders of the Atlanta branch of the Mutant Underground.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	The first day of the rest of their lives

**Author's Note:**

> I'm fully aware that nobody is going to read this because this fandom is pretty much dead by now, but I'm really proud of this fic?? It was inspired by this gifset (https://multifandom-damnation.tumblr.com/post/618223454799495168/anjelia3-1x02-1x05) and I just couldn't help myself. I wrote Marcos's section first so I'm most proud of the way his section turned out, but even though the other bits are a little all over the place and dull, I don't hate them. I wrote his first because he had the only canon background I could find, and then I just arranged them in age order. A lot of the aspects in this fic are things I've seen in flashback scenes, like Lorna's farmhouse and Marcos dad calling his mutation 'demon powers' or Clarice's roommate Lilly and foster dad (maybe? The wiki and the episode gives different names, so IDK). So, if you're one of the few reading this, I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did writing it haha. This is also the first fic I've ever written, maybe, that doesn't have any relationships, and it's actually killing me not to fill it in.

John was eleven when he woke up with the sensation of the sun being too bright, his sheets being too itchy, the noise outside too loud, the smell of his mother's cooking too strong. He felt so sick that every time he tried to stand up, he immediately resisted the urge to puke, and he spent three days in bed before he felt well enough to leave.

At first, he thought that there was nothing wrong. The amount of everything had died down slightly, and he no longer felt the need to squint at the moon through the clouds at night, to cover his ears at the faint hint of laughter, to wrinkle his nose at his neighbours cooking. He was well enough to play outside, at least, and his little brother was more than desperate for a chance to go outside and run around with his big brother's supervision. 

He thought that nothing had happened, until he took a playful swing at his brother with the intention to miss and the assumption to hurt, and ended up punching a hole in a brick wall. It didn’t hurt. In fact, he didn’t even feel it. He didn’t even know it had happened until he caught his mother staring at him with those wide eyes at the flyscreen door. Suddenly, he could hear his own heartbeat, which wasn’t so strange, but he could hear his mother’s and James’s too. James’s heart was strangely even. He looked at his hands, and threw another punch at the wall, sending crumbling debris and dust and chunks of the wall crashing to the ground. He was unscathed- no blood or bruising or even pain across his knuckles. He wouldn’t have believed it happened if he hadn’t been looking right at it.

James cheered behind him and danced around him in circles. “You’re like me!” he beamed, and John wished he understood. 

“What?”

“You’re like me! We’re both freaks!”

Somehow, all at once, he felt many pairs of feet moving in their direction, could hear their footsteps, their hushed yet worried words, their distrust and confusion, their rapid breathing as they made their way, their heartbeats. He wanted to cover his ears and sink to the floor, but all he could do was breathe through it as James’s excitement became an afterthought. “It’s so much.”

“You’ll get used to it,” James shrugged as if John’s life didn’t just entirely change in the span of a few moments, and he looked towards his mother. She stood on the front lawn, watching him with worried eyes, looking sympathetic. John realized then that she knew what was happening, knew what was wrong with him, and couldn’t help but wonder why she wasn’t coming closer.

John wished he shared his brother's excitement, but more than excited, he was confused and scared. Suddenly, it felt too much like the ground couldn’t take his weight as if it would buckle and groan and cave in from under him. When he asked, James tried to explain what it meant. He took out his father's knife from his belt and ran it over his skin, yet no blood blossomed, no wound formed. He laughed like it was the most magical thing in the world, but John just felt numb as he let James take his hand and run the blade over his forearm. There was no blood. There was no pain. 

If his father were here, he would wrap his arms around him and hold him so tight that it hurt to breathe. He would tug at his hair and tell him he was loved. He would hold his hands and kiss his knuckles were blood was supposed to be. He would poke at his chest and tell him that everything was going to be OK.

But his father was still fighting in the Gulf war, earning medals and saving lives and fighting for their people, and John was left with nobody but himself as he stood there in the middle of the wreckage, looking at his hands, secretly relishing in the unknown, new-found feeling of power pumping through his veins.

* * *

Lorna was twelve when the bullies came to her house, chucking rocks and hurling insults, laughing when she screamed at them. She had begged them through her tears to go, but they stayed at the fence, mocking her for her parent's deaths, for being an orphan, for being alone. The bipolar girl with green hair and dead parents. They chucked rocks at her like her parent's deaths was her fault. But they had told her that she was crazy, and she was just so damn sick of people calling her crazy and insane and nuts and that was just too much for her, and when she screamed back to refute that she wasn’t crazy, she wasn’t, don’t call her crazy, the whole world seemed to implode around her.

The windows shattered with the force of the frame contracting and the pipes all rattled and burst at once, spraying water everywhere. The sink from the kitchen flew through the front door, along with the fridge and the dishwasher. She watched one kid get hit in the face with the back of a ladle as all of their cutlery and kitchen equipment flew through the broken windows and circled her like faithful soldiers, vibrating and rotating in a slow orbit. Inside, she could hear things breaking.

Aunt Dane had barely managed to escape her car before that too, was compressed and torn apart and rendered unrecognizable. Light posts and signs bent in the middle and came crashing to the ground. Her neighbour's houses began to tremble as the metal answered her call.

A brief glance down at her hands, surrounded by swirling green energy, the colour of rust, the feeling of corrosion, dancing across her fingertips and making her hands tingle, like sticking a fork in a toaster. But it didn’t hurt. No, as she brought her hand up to her face to get a closer look, she laughed at how it felt, the rawness of it, the way it made her heart speed up and her blood to rush to her head, the way the very sight of it and everything Lorna had done without even thinking about it had made the bullies who were previously teasing her like it was their favourite thing in the world run screaming at the top of their lungs in fear. They were afraid of her. No, they were afraid of what she could do.

If this was what she could do without even trying, what would happen if she put her mind to it? What if she really tried. 

She didn’t think about the consequences when she searched for the very foundations of her home. All she knew was that she wanted to see what would happen, so she let it touch her, she found it deep, deep under layers of cement, and she called it to her grasp. The floor trembled like an earthquake as sticks of rebar and forgotten fragments and shards of things buried long ago came to her aid, and she laughed at the sight of it all. She turned to the boys and told them to run, but they didn’t need direction as they spun on their heels and rushed back the way they came from, calling her a witch and a crazy bitch and a psycho and a monster and a freak.

Maybe she was all those things. But now she was something more, something powerful, something scary.

The next day they moved from their little suburban town to a farmhouse on the very edge town, far away from anyone and everything other than a tiny school and the rare passing car, where nobody knew who they were or what she did. They would find out, of course, dead parents and mental illnesses spread fast in a town with nothing else to talk about, but Lorna didn’t care. Not yet, at least. She would spend her free time in the backyard, relishing in the feeling of her body humming and whatever scrap metal she could find bending to her will and realized that this was what she was always meant to be. This is what she had been waiting for her whole life without even knowing it.

* * *

Marcos was thirteen when his skin started to itch uncontrollably like it didn’t fit right, as if bugs were crawling under his skin. He had dismissed it as nothing, even when it became impossible to ignore and he was scratching at his arms so harshly that they turned red.

He felt like his veins were on fire. And when his father looked at him with disdain and scolded him for acting so strangely, for slowing down with his chores, for not paying attention, for cursing his mother for having given birth to a disrespectful boy like him, Marcos had… well. He snapped, just a little bit.

He had screamed, screamed so loud that his throat ached from it, and his father had taken a step back from him, horrified, as Marcos hands suddenly felt like he had placed them on the surface of the sun, and he fell to his knees in unbearable pain as they erupted in blinding light, sparks flying like a frayed electrical cable, liquid flame slipping through his fingers and burning holes in the floor.

His skin blistered and bubbled as light danced across his hands, hotter than flame, hotter than holding onto a gleaming lightbulb, hotter than sticking his hands into a smouldering fireplace. All he could feel was pain, and fear, and the strange feeling in the background of his muddled mind of being set free, like an angel finding its wings.

When he looked into his father's eyes, he saw absolute horror, and over his screams he heard his father preying, pulling rosary beads from his pocket and counting the beads rapidly in his fingers. It wasn’t the most reassuring thing to see, even when Marcos keeled over and burnt his handprint into the floor, so hot that the concrete turned to liquid.

When he looked in the little mirror by the front door, his eyes were blazing like a star at night, so bright that looking at his reflection made him want to look away. He looked so helpless, kneeling on the ground with his hands held out in front of him, tears streaking down his face, his hands burning from the inside out, numb from the pain, the pads of his fingers almost vibrating with it, his palms like a miniature sun, the area around him raining flame.

If his mother were here, she would put her arms around him, hold him close and told him everything was going to be OK. Hold his hands in hers despite the pain, push his hair out of his eyes, wipe his tears away, tell him he was loved no matter what, and a mutation like his would never change that. But his mother wasn’t here, and all he had was his father, standing before him and staring at him with those cold, uncaring eyes as he called him the devil and pointed him towards the door, giving him the same ultimatum he gave his mother all those years ago, the words that had finally driven her out for good. Hide your mutation, or leave.

When the pain died down and Marcos could open his mouth without screaming, he sat in his room with his back against the door for hours until the light had died down to nothing. He could touch things without it heating up or melting. In fact, he could hardly feel it, if it weren’t for the way his veins glowed whenever he flexed his fingers, or his blood sang like dripping sunlight.

He packed his bags with what little he had and left the same night, following in his mother's footsteps, as his father watched him leave with his arms crossed in the doorway. He didn’t even wait for Marcos to get out of sight before he shut the door and turned away, continuing on with his life as if it had never happened as if his son had never existed.

* * *

Clarice was fourteen when it happened the first time, a panic that bloomed in her chest and fluttered in her throat like a second heartbeat. She wasn’t supposed to be out after curfew, but she wanted to watch the sunset somewhere peaceful and alone, and then the sun had fallen behind the horizon and the stars were just so pretty that she couldn't turn away. But then she had been interrupted by squealing car tires, the slamming of a door, the drunken shouting of Miles, the startled scream of some of the other kids as he searched the house before the back door opened and shut, and she knew with absolute clarity that he was searching for her. 

“Clarice!” she heard, closer than she would have liked. “The hell are you? I knew you were sneaking out at night, you ungrateful little-”

She didn’t have to listen to the rest. Panic pushed at her throat and fear scratched at her chest as she thought of some way of escape, knowing that there wasn’t one. All she wanted was to run, but she couldn’t run, because she couldn’t leave Lilly, and couldn't leave any of the other kids. She couldn’t leave them to deal with his hell alone.

All of a sudden, she was overcome by the sensation of her insides pulsating, her fingers tingling, her lips going numb. It was like nothing she had ever felt before, all at once too much and not enough at the same time. A deep bottomless pit in her stomach that somehow both felt empty and full of something strange. And then her eyes were drawn to where her fingers were flickering, a purple so bright that the light danced across her face, and when she brought her hands together to stare hopelessly at it, something small appeared between them, almost like a window. She pulled it apart, trying to see what was through it, and was shocked to see her bedroom, with the bunk bed and Lilly sitting on the bottom bunk, face illuminated by purple, staring at Clarice with shock. Behind her, Clarice could hear Miles, “Where are you, you little brat?” and knew that she needed to get away as soon as she could.

Somehow, she wasn’t afraid of the window made of purple light. Something inside of her pulled her towards it, and without thinking, she pulled her hands apart even further until she could fit through the little window, and just when she heard Clive storming over the hill, she leapt through it, hoping against hope, and tumbled into her bedroom, head over heels. The window closed behind her, and she suddenly felt exhausted, like her very energy had been syphoned from her.

“Clarice?” Lilly sounded frightened. “What’s going on? Miles is looking for you.”

“I know, I know,” Clarice said, looking at her hands. 

“What did you just do? What was that?”

“I don’t know. I just panicked and… and it happened. I just stepped through. I don’t know what it was.”

Lilly leant forward to touch her hands, but couldn't feel anything different. “Do you think it has something to do with that scar you have? Or why your eyes are like that?”

Honestly, that thought hadn’t even crossed Clarice’s mind, but maybe she was right. She had always known that she was different, but she hadn’t known that she was a powerful kind of different, a _cool_ kind of different.

The door to their bedroom slammed open and Miles stood there panting angrily until he caught sight of her in the bedroom where she was supposed to be and seemed to recoil. “What are you-”

“Sorry, I didn’t hear you calling,” she tried not to let her fear shine through her carefully chosen words. “I was in the shower.”

He seemed too drunk to notice that she was still wearing the clothes she was in when he left that morning, and after a moment of looking at her in confusion, he slowly backed away and shut the door, the house settling into an uncomfortable silence.

Lilly looked at her, and her expression was giddy, her eyes bright. “That’s a really neat trick. It could be useful. It could help us.”

“I know,” Clarice said, staring at her hands again. “I’m going to practice. I’m… I’m going to get better. I will. I _will_.”

And somehow, against all odds, she felt the strongest she had ever felt in her entire life.

**Author's Note:**

> Marcos's power, in my personal opinion, is so damn cool??? I'm a little jealous. I can't decide if my favourite is John or Marcos, so I'm going to call it a draw because I just love them both so much and their friendship actually means so much to me, I think it's really shown well in the show. So that's that on that. The reason he lost control in his scene it because during his altercation with Reeva, she made him lose control of his powers and he ended up burning himself pretty badly? I think he made the comment that he hadn't done that since he was a kid. I didn't give any mention of his lasers because at that point he probably had no idea he could do that. I don't think that there's many of you left, but if you want any info on why I included what I did for each person, feel free to ask and I'll be more than happy to answer x


End file.
